six days at the bottom of the ocean
by moeten
Summary: "Well, I wouldn't start looking for new girlfriends in pharmacies," Tracy jokes, except that Barney totally does. [OR: the AU where instead of giving him an inspiring speech, Tracy and Barney start dating instead.]
1. six days at the bottom of the ocean

_BECAUSE I NEEDED TO START ANOTHER STORY. i've been threatening to write this story for about a year now, and, well, TODAY IS THE DAY. to be clear, this is a hardcore no joke **ALTERNATE UNIVERSE** story (as the, you know, tracy/barney thing probably gives away). it starts mid-season 8 — everything up through _Splitzville _happened, as well as the flashback events in_ Platonish _, but things go off course with Tracy and Barney's first meeting, and…_

 _trails off dramatically…_

 _I have no idea how long this story will be or how dramatic it'll get. This is completely a dumb self indulgence type of fanfic, and BTU **totally** owes me some cookies now. ;)_

* * *

 **six days at the bottom of the ocean**

* * *

Tracy brushes off the weird guy trying to hit on her, and goes back to looking at combs. She's replaying her conversation with Lewis in her head, _Why don't you stay over_ versus her total inability to come up with a reason to say no, a reason besides _meh_ or _I don't know, I have an appointment with my sweats and Deadliest Catch_ , so she'd said _Oh, I don't have … stuff_ and now she's at a pharmacy. She's trying to decide if it would be kind of gross to get deodorant, like, is that one of those things girls are supposed to pretend they don't do? He'd asked her what she needed and said he had an extra toothbrush anyway, so Tracy had gone _uhh_ and _lots of stuff_ , but now she doesn't know how to fake it. Fake _stuff_ , and fake that she wants to do this.

She should want to do this. Lewis is her boyfriend. She really likes him, she thinks.

She shouldn't feel kind of hollow when she thinks about him. She thinks.

Tracy picks out a comb. She's paying and trying to work up some enthusiasm for her upcoming wild sleepover event and perfect hair — and suddenly the guy from before is back, still walking towards her as he asks:

"What do you mean, _sad_?"

(This much remains true.)

* * *

"I mean," Tracy says, taking her change back from the clerk and waffling a little bit, because the dude in the suit sounds kind of distressed and she doesn't know, really. Who hits on women in pharmacies?, she almost says, but that sounds sarcastic (if accurate) and it wasn't only the ridiculousness that had made her say it, made her grab him by the shoulders and look him in the eye and tell him to buck up, buddy. "If you're trying to pick up me, in, you know, here," she slides her comb into her jacket pocket with her change, "there's a couple of things in that equation that are sort of weird."

"Why?" Suit asks. "You married?"

She has to laugh at that idea. "No. No way." He doesn't stop her when she brushes past him, but she can hear him trail after her, so she stops them in front of a bleach display. "I mean, you don't look _happy_."

Suit frowns at her a little. "Just because I don't look _happy_ doesn't mean I'm _sad_."

"You're picking up women after picking up diapers," Tracy points out, nodding at the package under his arm.

"Oh. These aren't for —" Suit frowns. "they're for a friend of mine."

"A little baby friend?"

"My _godson_ ," he says, "thanks."

"Aww, congrats," Tracy says, patting him on the arm. "Well, nice chatting, but I gotta…" she points her thumb over her shoulder. "Bye!"

He follows her again. "I'm not sad!" She makes a right outside the store, and he follows, easily matching her pace. "Lady, I am the least sad person on the planet. I am so not sad that I can't even remember the last time I _was_ sad. When I start to _feel_ sad, I just stop and get awesome. I'm not sad."

"Why are you trying so hard to convince me this?" she asks, which seems to trip him up a little because it stops his anti-sadness monologue for a few seconds. She stops at a crosswalk and so does he, and for a few seconds they just stand there, waiting for the light.

"Are we gonna —?" He gestures at a break in traffic.

"I don't jaywalk."

"You live in _New York_ ," he says, disgusted. "What are you, from Oklahoma?"

"Oklahoma?" The light turns, but Tracy is staring at him and misses it until he puts his free hand at her back to nudge her forward. "How long are you gonna follow me? Because I have a rule, it's creepy after two blocks." She nods up the street.

They pass a subway station, a bodega, and a photo development place. "Why do you think I'm sad?" he asks again.

They're approaching the end of the block. There's a bus stop without anyone waiting, and Tracy takes a deep breath and sits down at the bench, right in the middle of it. Suit hesitates for a second, looks at the intersection ahead of them, then sits down next to her.

Tracy looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time. He's maybe ten years older than her, although it's harder to tell in semi-dark than in the florescent light of the pharmacy. Wall Street looking suit, handsome face, even with the broad forehead; eyes she remembers as blue, now dark, with lines and shadows beneath. He's frowning at her. "I know what it looks like," she says. "I've been there myself."

"You're lonely?" Suit asks her.

 _Yeah_ , Tracy wants to say, but that isn't a good thing to say, because she has a boyfriend and good friends and no real reason to feel lonely or feel sad, none except for the usual reasons. But it sounds kind of ungrateful in her head. "Are you?" she asks, keeping the conversation on the stranger.

He leans against the bench and stares out at the traffic, his arms slung over the back of the bench. "I don't know. I just broke up with my fiancée," he says, but he says it thoughtful.

"I'm sorry."

"I really liked her a lot," he says, still in that pensive, puzzled voice. "But I don't know, I'm okay with it."

"I believe you," she says.

"Yeah?"

Tracy shrugs. "It's not like I know you, so I kind of have to?" He chuckles. She thinks a little bit about Max, and then about Lewis, and how she'd feel if that ended, but that's kind of another mean, ungrateful thought she doesn't want to dwell on. "So if you're not heartbroken about her, what's been getting you down?"

"I'm not…"

She's a little surprised that all it takes is her raising her eyebrows for Suit to shut up. "You followed me two blocks. No one gets this obsessive over being called something they're _not_."

"Well played," he mutters. She chuckles this time. His jaw clenches and moves, then he huffs out a sigh. "I'm not… I'm kind of sad about Quinn," he says slowly, "but it's like…" he scratches at his eyebrow, frowning heavily and clearly struggling for words. "I was pretty sure I loved her. I definitely liked her. And bro, the sex was like you wouldn't _believe_ —" He grins over at Tracy and she just sits there with her eyebrows raised, feeling grossed out, until he clears his throat. "So it sucks, kind of, but I'm not really _that_ sad," he continues, looking more or less at Tracy's shoulder. "But I don't know if I have all that many other options."

"Well, I wouldn't start looking for new girlfriends in pharmacies," Tracy jokes, and he gives her a half smile and half chuckle in return. She raises one of her feet up onto the bench, hugs her knee. "It sounds like you were just settling, huh?"

He looks surprised, maybe offended, and then his expression sobers. "I… have not, historically, been great at relationships," he says slowly. He straightens the knot of his tie and clears his throat and looks at traffic. "I may, in fact, be a pretty terrible human being when it comes to the opposite sex."

He says it like a joke, but Tracy doesn't smile or laugh. He looks like he's sitting on something, he looks like his eyes aren't in on the joke. Eventually he adds: "There is… there _was_ … this other girl."

Tracy's mouth twitches. "I'm guessing it didn't work out?" she asks quietly.

"We dated for a while, but…" He shrugs. "It ended really quickly."

"And you got engaged to someone else."

"Yeah, but that was years later." He clears his throat. "She wasn't interested."

"I get it," Tracy says, surprising even herself a little bit. He looks at her. She closes her eyes and counts to three. She doesn't want to talk about it, but she brought it up. "I mean… yeah, I don't know. I know what it's like to lose someone. And to feel like you have to… settle for second best." It's not the same, but maybe it is the same. Tracy can't judge or weigh her feelings and oceans of grief against his relationship and breakup, can't use Max as a weight or measure. But she can understand liking someone. Can understand wanting to like them more. And regret.

He nods at her, a few times, as if to say _yes, I agree_. "So… what about you?"

She rests her head sideways on her raised knee, smiles. "I'm supposed to be heading back to my boyfriend's place right now, actually."

"What's his name?" Suit asks, inexplicably, like it's something that matters in this.

"Lewis. Lewis Callahan." He nods at her again. "What's yours?" Tracy asks, impulsively.

"Barney Stinson," he says.

"Tracy McConnell," she says.

He hesitates, visibly, looking her over thoughtfully. "Is it gonna last, with you and Number Two?"

"You shouldn't call him that," Tracy says gently. "I don't know."

"You like him a lot," Barney prompts.

"But there's this other guy," Tracy finishes, with a sigh instead of a small smile to match his. She squeezes her eyes shut and thinks about Max, his smile, blurry in her memory, his dark hair, his bangs always falling over and brushed off his forehead, five, ten, fifteen times an hour. "He, uh, he passed away. A little while ago."

"Oh," says Barney. "Sorry."

"I do like Lewis," she insists.

"I really liked Quinn," he says. She isn't sure she wants to agree with the implication.

"Soo," Tracy sighs, sitting up again, shifting her shoulderblades. "I should probably get going. To see my boyfriend." She has a comb now and everything.

"Hey," Barney says. He's looking at her thoughtfully, and she stays put a second, as he reaches into his jacket, to an inside pocket, pulls out his wallet and then a business card. He hands it to her, and she reads:

 **BARNEY STINSON** (that guy's awesome)

 **GOLIATH NATIONAL BANK**

There's a couple of phone numbers and an e-mail address, and no actual job title. She flips it over. "The second number is my work cell," he says.

She looks up at him, and maybe looks a little surprised, because he cracks a smile. "You should feel fortunate. I don't give my number to just _anyone_ I hit on. In fact, even telling one night stands my last name is usually gonna be a no go —"

"Right, because your first name is super common and blends right in," Tracy says, but she says it with some amusement, because she kind of is. "Look, buddy, I'm not looking for a one night anything."

"I know," Barney says, putting his wallet away again, and standing up, picking up the diapers and paper bag he'd been carrying. "But…" He kind of hesitates, and then says with conviction: "I like you, Tracy McConnell." She doesn't know what to say. "And if you wanna …" He looks up, and looks away, and looks right at her, with a new, serious look. "If you ever break up with your number two, I think we could get along pretty well." He shrugs. "Think about it."

It sounds like just about the least romantic proposal in the world. Tracy looks down at the business card. "Sure," she says, because it's not a promise with commitment.

"See ya around, McConnell," Barney says, smirking a little, and doesn't wait for a goodbye before he heads back up the street.

* * *

It's been getting colder out, Barney thinks miserably, shuddering as he exits the cab and heads downstairs into MacLaren's. Not only that, but if he's honest with himself (which he tries not to be), lately he's been operating at far below peak levels of awesomeness. He isn't really sure why, but as he pushes the door to the bar open and sees Ted and Robin at the booth, he gets a sort of inkling.

It's been a couple of weeks since he… had that weird word vomit experience at Splitzville in front of Robin and her recent ex-boyfriend (whatever his name was — Barney has happily erased the chicken-legged loser from his memory). That whole memory still feels him with a pinchy sort of anxiety. Everyone believed him when he said he was lying for Robin's sake, and Robin hasn't said anything about it… which is good, infinitely good, because it was a weird out of body experience and Barney isn't even sure he _wasn't_ just broing her out.

But for some reason, he's been jumpy around her since.

It doesn't stop him from placing an order at the bar and sliding into the booth. Ted has papers he's pretending to grade, and Robin has a half empty glass of vodka ice and a low-cut top Barney gives a three second glance-over to.

"Why shouldn't I host this year?" Robin is saying. She offers him a brief "'hey' without a second glance. She doesn't mention the Splitzville Incident. "Marshall and Lily hosted it last year, you — okay, Zoey — did Thanksgiving the year before, I wanna try."

"Robin, you can't _cook_ ," Ted says.

"I can cook!" Robin says, her voice going high. "I mean, it's just getting a bird and putting it in an oven, how hard is that?"

"I don't know, how hard is it to make toast?" Ted says, rolling his eyes. "Dude, back me up," he says to Barney.

"Robin, we love you, but we also love not getting food poisoning," he says at once. Then cringes in his soul, but no one else reacts to his accidental choice of words.

"Oh, like you can talk. You have a fake oven."

"For your information," Barney says, raising himself up to full height, "I bought a real one. State of the art."

"Why?" Ted asks incredulously. "Robin's right. All you have in your fridge is Red Bull and whipped cream."

"Damn straight," Barney smirks. "Why can't we just let Lil cook? She's good at that stuff."

"Yeah, but she and Marshall have the baby. Me and Ted thought it'd be kind of nice if we let them have this year off, you know, gave them a break" Robin explains.

Barney considers that, and mostly comes up with a jealous sort of twitch at Robin and Ted planning nice things together. Dammit. This is why he's so un-awesome lately, and he has no idea how to make it stop. He feels at loose ends, weird and kind of pointless. Not pointless in the _gang_ , since obviously he's still the most awesome person in his friend's lives, and secondary leader after Lily, but just… pointless. Like just chasing bimbos isn't enough of a life goal anymore, but he doesn't have a formed backup plan yet.

Ted and Robin are now talking about maybe hosting a joint Thanksgiving, taking a sort of divide and conquer approach, which makes Barney prickle with annoyance again. "What about my mom?" he says. "Mom is making a big dinner this year and James and the kids are coming down too!"

"I don't want to spend Thanksgiving on Staten Island," Robin says.

"I don't know, Barn, it'd be pretty weird to spend it with your _mom_ ," Ted says.

"Why? You guys like my family," Barney says, honestly a little confused.

"It'd be weird," Ted insists.

Robin takes a sip of her drink. "Does your mom do Thanksgiving every year? You're always with all of us."

"Usually she goes to AC with her friends," Barney says. Some waitress who isn't Wendy (what ever happened to her? Not that he minds, since no one is poisoning his food anymore with her gone) brings him his scotch, and he takes a drink. "But this year she's all — you know, James and Tom have two kids now." And he was supposed to show up with Quinn, he suddenly remembers. His mom had made a big deal about it, both her boys all grown up and stuff. He takes another drink and tries not to feel weird anymore.

"Hey," says Robin, "maybe the three of us could throw something together? Ted can do the turkey, me and Barn can do the sides… bake a pie…"

Ted gives her a look Barney doesn't get. "Right, that'll work out well," he says, and Barney figures it's because Robin still can't cook.

"Oh, shut it," Robin says, clearing her throat and looking down at her drink.

"What am I missing here?" Barney asks.

Ted sighs loudly and pretentiously. "Maybe," he says. "Robin, how big is the kitchen at your place? My stove is pretty small, and Barney's is fake…"

"I told you, I bought one," Barney corrects idly. "Why don't we just hire a chef to do it for us?"

Both Ted and Robin object pretty strongly to that idea, which seems ridiculous to Barney, but he isn't invested enough to really care too much. After that, he drifts out of the conversation, which is mostly the two of them discussing kitchen stuff. He kills time scoping out the bar and checking out Robin's neckline. He's… bored. Or restless. Or something. He needs something, needs some plan or goal or super hottie to pursue… some sort of path, some sort of idea, now that Quinn is gone and it's almost winter.

Robin leans across the table towards him and Ted — she's arguing some point to Ted, jabbing her arm towards him, glaring but also smiling a little, fake arguing, looking great and … beautiful and sort of soft lit and glowey like she's the cover of a freaking romance novel. He kind of hates it. He keeps thinking about fucking _Splitzville_ , and he knows why, but that doesn't mean he wants to. He was just kidding. He wasn't kidding. It makes no difference, either way.

When his phone vibrates in his pocket he's a little relieved, because he's restless and doesn't want to think about Robin, for a minute, for once in his life. Heedless of Ted and Robin's continued argument about sweet potatoes, he pulls it out and answers. "Barney Stinson's phone," he barks.

"Hello?" It's a woman. He doesn't immediately recognize the voice.

"Right," he says. "See, I said my name just now, so you don't have to _hello_ like that." He pulls his phone away from his ear to check; it's his work cell, which is a little weird. He doesn't usually get calls after four. "Who is this?"

"Uhm, this is Tracy," the woman says. He immediately remembers, but she continues: "We met the other day in a pharmacy? You had diapers?"

"Oh! Tracy McConnell!" Barney says with actual delight. He doesn't often give his number to women, and he's kind of happy, for some reason, to hear from her. He isn't sure why, especially since she was kind of rude at the time. Ted glances over at him with raised eyebrows. "Wassup?" Barney asks.

"Uh, well…" Tracy heaves a huge sigh into the phone, which comes out as a burst of static. "I was wondering, do you wanna maybe meet up or something? I was kind of thinking about taking you up on your offer."

He hears her inhale a sharp, nervous breath, like she's afraid of what he'll say. He's not surprised: he had her type pegged within a few seconds of seeing her, the steady monogamy, ' _I never do this_ ' kinda girl.

"You broke up with your number two?" he asks. Both Ted and Robin are looking at him curiously now, their conversation dropped. He looks at Robin across the booth, her arms on the table, her mouth slightly open in puzzlement, her eyes dark blue and eyelashes long and dark.

"Yeah," Tracy is saying. "I mean, I don't know. I was thinking about what we talked about, and I was like, is it really fair? To be with him just 'cause I don't want to be alone? It's not fair. It's actually kind of mean. And it's like you were saying. I'm kind of sad, but I'm not… _sad_." She sighs. Barney looks across the table at Robin. She narrows her eyes in puzzlement, and he can her an echo of telepathy: _What's going on? Everything okay?_ "And I don't know," Tracy is saying, her voice a thoughtful hum in his ear. "I might _never_ get over him. I'm not even sure I want to." He looks at Robin and thinks about talking to her outside of Splitzville, and how she'd pushed him to make sure he was only joking, how quick she'd dropped the subject, how weird he felt and feels and how he's even thought of bringing it up again in random moments.

"…I know." Tracy is still talking, punctuating with a soft, quiet laugh, "this isn't exactly a great _let's go out_ speech, and I'm not even sure that's what I'm asking here. But I haven't really ever let myself think about this stuff, and you're the first person I've met who maybe… feels a little bit the same."

"Yeah," Barney says, looking away from Robin, out towards the bar. "Totally. Let's meet up."

"Okay!" Tracy says, sounding relieved. "Wow. Okay. Where do you wanna meet up?"

"Do you know a bar called MacLarens?"

They make arrangements to meet up tomorrow for lunch — Barney promises Tracy that the food is really good and it'll be 'casual.' It's a brief conversation, and she tries to clarify herself about five times more during — _I'm not saying let's go out, but_ — but he ignores that, feeling weirdly good about talking to her. When she says goodbye, she apologizes for her weird 'super unflirty' over explaining, and he lets her apologize, but he doesn't mind it. He actually kind of likes it. It's kind of neat, talking to someone who can talk about their feelings.

When he hangs up, both Ted and Robin are staring at him with open mouths. "What?" Barney asks, pocketing his phone.

"What was that?" Ted asks. "You're meeting someone on a lunch date?"

Robin doesn't say anything. Barney knows better, but he still checks to see if she looks miserable or jealous. She just takes a big gulp of her vodka. "Yeah," she says, frowning at Barney and then her empty glass. "What's going on?"

"Oh," Barney says. He doesn't know what he expected. (He does, and he hates it.) "Yeah. That was Tracy." He considers Tracy's apologies and backwards and forwards justifications. "My girlfriend."


	2. just scared of never feeling it again

_hello again! i was blown away (in a good way) by the positive response this story got — i was really expecting people to be like WTF R U DOING, lmao. to semi clarify things for readers, this story WILL end up with ted/tracy and barney/robin pairs, but tracy/barney is not just a fake out until that happens — this isn't patrice 2.0, they really are going to be dating. i can weirdly kind of picture it, you know? it'd be kind of cute? :P_

* * *

It's already dark out by the time Tracy gets home, and her apartment is dark. "I'm home," she calls out anyway, even though she hasn't had a roommate for a year; she kicks off her shoes, turns on a lamp, and flops down onto the sofa. She thinks about at least turning on the TV, so she can act like she's doing something besides just lying there, but her arm is folded under her and the remote is on the coffee table and…

For a little while she just lies there, and then she drags herself upright just long enough to fetch her phone out of her purse. She calls Kelly.

"Hello?"

"I broke up with Lewis," Tracy says, already listing back to her previous horizontal position.

"You — what? Hang on a sec." From all the background noise, Kelly is out somewhere — maybe a bar. For about half a second Tracy wishes she'd been invited, but if Kelly had, she would have said no, because she was in the middle of breaking up with her boyfriend. So that wouldn't have panned out. "Okay," Kelly says a minute later, coming back on the line. "Okay, I'm in the alley. What happened? Do you need me to come over? Lewis dumped you? What the hell?"

"No, I broke up with him," Tracy says again, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling.

" _Why_?"

It's a pretty fair question, because Tracy wasn't planning this before three days ago. "Did you like him?" she asks.

"Sure. Lewis was a great guy," Kelly says, but in a matter-of-fact voice without much passion. "Unless he cheated on you. Did he?"

"No," Tracy says. "He was — god, he was really upset. He didn't see it coming at all." Her feeling numb shock that she actually — for real — just did this — is starting to peel away; she feels the waves of guilt starting to creep in. "He was all, why? Did I do something? Aren't we happy? And I had to be like," she sniffles a little, "no, this is all me, it's not you…"

"You dumped him with 'it's not you, it's me?'" Kelly echoes. Tracy sniffles again. "Ohh, honey. I'll come right over," Kelly adds quickly.

"No, it's okay," Tracy says, really meaning the opposite. "I just felt awful about it. I had to kind of keep my eyes closed the whole time, or I would have started just bawling. I hate having to have done that to him!"

"Sweetie," Kelly coos. "It's okay. I'm sure you did what you had to do."

Tracy nods and rubs her nose on her sleeve. She had her eyes closed or on the floor the whole time, so thank god, she has no mental images of Lewis's face to haunt her dreams, but at one point he'd asked her point blank, _why? Tracy, I love you. I thought we were going to spend our lives together_ , and it had absolutely crushed her. She still hears it on echo, _Tracy, I love you_. She tells all this to Kelly, crying a little at the memory, from both guilt and actual sadness. "…Like I could tell, I was really messing him up, and I hate it, I really hate it. But I realized _as_ he was saying it, part of my brain was just, _this isn't right_. He just wasn't — the right person. He wasn't the guy I wanted to hear that from. And I've really known that for a while now, but it's not like Lewis is a _bad_ guy, so…"

"So he was more into you two than you were?"

"I guess so," Tracy says, all heartfelt and still crying a little. "I didn't know how much until today, until he was asking me why and I just had no answer. I mean, what was I supposed to tell him? I lost the love of my life when I was eighteen and was just settling for you?"

"Tracy…" Kelly says in this loaded tone of voice: she's been pushing Tracy to move on, whatever that even means, for a few years now. And Tracy loves her forever and Kelly is one of the few people who has really stuck with her over the years, but she just doesn't _get_ it. Some things can't be replaced or topped.

"So, it wasn't fair to him, and the worst part is, I'm not even… I'm _sad_ , but I'm not _heartbroken_ , just like diaper man said, so that just makes me feel worse, because now I feel like I'm just this heartless…" Tracy trails off.

"Diaper man?"

"This guy I met the other day," Tracy says. "It was that or Suit Guy, and I thought diapers were a bit more humiliating." Barney. Barney Stinson. It's his fault, this whole thing; somehow her conversation with him, him talking about his fiancée and his own lost love and settling, making her think of Max, trying to move on from Max and really just jumping sideways. It wasn't like Lewis was a bad guy, like they never had fun together or good times. But she wasn't in love with him, not really. "He tried to hit on me and we ended up talking. He's in the same situation I am, except he'd already broken up with Lewis. I mean, his fiancée, not actually Lewis, that would be a little weird. Not _weird_ weird, just one heck of a crazy coincidence." She laughs dryly. "His name's Barney. He seems like a nice guy," she muses.

"Tracy McConnell!" Kelly interjects. "Did you dump Lewis for another man?"

"No," Tracy laughs, then she remembers. "Although he _did_ give me his number."

" _O_ ho!" Kelly says with relish. "Tracy, I had no idea that was your game. This is amazing. Is he hot?"

"I guess," Tracy says. "He's pretty tall. And blond, if that's what you're into. Maybe I _will_ call him," she decides abruptly. He'd sort of asked her out, after all, and more selfishly than that, she's still all jumbled up about Lewis and now Max again. Barney seems like he might _get_ that. Maybe he can help. Tracy's suddenly struck with an elaborate mental fantasy, where they have this first date and hit it off and there's a whirlwind montage, them in a farmer's market, them at a concert, them visiting Max's grave together. In every image she's middle aged and so is he — a bit blurrily so, because Tracy can't remember his features enough to really imagine it — and they have a comfortable, quiet life of mutual understanding and settling and heartbreak. Like she'd had with Lewis, except without Lewis being more into it than her, forcing her to break his heart and lie on her sofa hating herself after.

"— you do, make sure to let me scope him out, and I can call Jake up or something so we can go on a double date, and, Tracy, are you even still there?" Kelly is asking.

"Huh? Yeah. Don't get ahead of yourself," Tracy says, to herself as much as to Kelly.

"Okay, okay," Kelly says. "But seriously, this is huge. I have never ever seen you throw yourself out there like this! Dump a man and land a new one in the same day? You?"

"You're right," Tracy realizes with dawning horror. "Crap! I can't call him! I'm gonna come off as totally crazy —"

"No! No! You'll come off as totally sane!"

"You just want me to follow in your footsteps!"

"Well, yeah, but —" Kelly laughs loudly in Tracy's ear. "Okay. Close your eyes."

"Kelly," Tracy complains, closing them.

"Was breaking up with Lewis the right thing to do?" she asks.

"Yes," Tracy says, taking a deep breath to fight the new wave of guilt and grief. She's going to draw a bath and cry it out later.

"Do you like this new guy?"

"I only talked to him once," Tracy says, her eyes still shut.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Didn't ask if you were in love with him. Do you like him? Wanna talk to him ever again?"

Tracy takes another deep breath. She remembers him standing in front of her at the bus stop, looking her in the eye and saying _I like you, Tracy McConnell_. She likes someone who can do that without hesitation. "Yes," she says, feeling pretty sure.

"Does liking this guy have anything to do with breaking up with Lewis?"

"Well, kind of, since it was us talking that…"

"No," Kelly interrupts. "Come on, don't get all _Law & Order_ on me here. Did you feelings for him ruin your relationship with Lewis?"

"I don't _have_ feelings for him." Tracy takes a final deep breath; more like an exasperated sigh. "No," she says. Then she laughs tiredly. "Okay, fine, you win. I'll call him."

* * *

First, Robin drops by Columbia. Ted's obviously surprised to see her when she walks into his office (hers is like, three times the size of his, she notes with some pride), but Robin doesn't give him time to speak. "Hey, Ted, I was wondering, you wanna get some lunch?"

"Sure!" Ted says, still looking surprised. "I have to finish up here," he says, gesturing towards his cluttered desk, "but give me five minutes? What are you doing in the neighborhood?"

"Oh, you know," Robin shrugs. She sits in the only other chair in the room, looking at Ted across the desk with some bemusement. Even three years later, it's really hard for her to mentally picture him as a teacher, but with the Arcadian mostly finished, he's mentioned he's going to take on more classes next year. Good for Ted, Robin supposes.

"Where did you want to go?" Ted asks. "I have a meeting at three, but —"

"MacLaren's," Robin interrupts.

Ted frowns a little. "Really?"

"Uh, yeah? It's, like, the best bar in New York," Robin echoes, matching his incredulity.

"I'm not disputing the facts in evidence," Ted says. "But for lunch? Maybe we can go somewhere a little … closer?"

"I really wanna go to MacLaren's!" Robin says, her voice accidentally going kind of high at the end. "Come on, Ted!"

"We'll go later tonight!" Ted says, chuckling nervously. "What's the rush?"

"Barney's having his date with whats-her-face in fifteen minutes!" Robin whines. "Don't you wanna crash it?"

Ted hesitates. "No, not really."

Robin hadn't expected that answer. She blinks, and leans towards him, reaching her hand across the desk to maybe physically drag him to their bar. "Come on, Teddy," she says. "It'll be fun! We get to make fun of the poor, dumb bimbo Barney is tricking into banging, get a nice afternoon drunk on, maybe run upstairs and say hi to Lily and the baby, what's not to like? Come on! Come on. You know you wanna. Come on, Mosby —"

"I don't want to!" Ted interrupts loudly. He clears his throat. "I mean, sure, watching Barney ruin his own life is always quality entertainment," Robin nods, sure she's got him, "but this feels a little… stalkery."

"It's not like we don't follow you on your first dates," Robin says. "Anyway, she sounds really suspicious, you know? Poor Barney's just gonna get taken advantage of and get his heart broken again. You know, I bet she's a hooker. 'Tracy' is totally a hooker name."

"That _is_ true, but," Ted clears his throat. "He seemed like he was having an actual conversation with her the other day, and I think we should reinforce Barney's positive behavior when it happens. If he wants to get a new girlfriend instead of clinging desperately to his youth, aren't we _all_ kind of winning?"

Robin thinks about it for a second. "No," she says. "I don't trust this. The whole situation is fishy."

They stare at one another across the table for a moment, at a stalemate. "So," Ted says hopefully, "there's a pretty good Greek place nearby?"

* * *

Robin goes to MacLaren's by herself, because she doesn't really have to be at work until 6:45 for the evening broadcast and has the time to kill. Or anyway, that's what she says to Barney when she spots him. He's already waiting in the booth for his so-called "date." Barney's wearing a blue tie. Robin knows that blue brings out his eyes and is what he favors when he's trying to impress someone, so she's immediately pretty suspicious.

"So, what's this tramp's name again?" she asks. They're both nibbling from a bowl of cheese crackers, and Robin grabs one of the few non-crumbled ones for herself.

"Tracy," Barney says, glancing out towards the door when he says her name.

"And you met that night you got me a samosa," Robin says. "That's so funny. Why didn't you mention her then?" He'd shown up at the apartment with her samosa and Marvin's diapers so late that Robin had started to worry he'd found a girl and taken her home. She'd been relieved when he finally _had_ shown up, but obviously that was a big trick.

"I don't know," Barney shrugs. He winces, and sighs. "I… I didn't really…"

The hesitation causes Robin an immediate pang of worry and other feelings. "Hey… are you okay?" she asks, automatically reaching for him…

"I didn't actually get her number!" Barney sobs loudly. "I failed the challenge! I'm sorry!" He covers his face with his hand and looks away. "I was ashamed!"

Well, that killed her feelings. Robin eats another cracker. "It's weird that she called you. Is she a prostitute?"

"No," Barney says with conviction. She doesn't know if that means he asked or he can just tell these things; both seem likely, and are a good damper on whatever wisps of emotion she'd had left. "Although," he says, and launches into a story about a hooker he'd once met in Mexico. It's a funny story, but Robin has heard it before. She doesn't have the heart to tell him this: she kind of likes seeing him all animated and cheerful. After all, he's had a rough time lately.

Five minutes later, he's just getting to the good part. "…And then, okay, we're in Koreatown — yes, there's a Koreatown in Mexico City — and she says to me… Tracy!"

Robin yanks her gaze from Barney to the bar. There's not a huge lunch crowd, so it's easy to pick out the woman he's addressing, and at first glance, Robin is… surprised. Tracy is small, practically Lily-sized, with wavy brown hair and big eyes and a stupid, not at all adorable, upturned nose. No signs of implants, bleach, or body glitter. Her dress is cute and flowery like she's fancy or something.

Robin hates her on sight.

"Yeah, I've actually been here before," Tracy is saying. She holds her purse in front of her with both hands, laughing nervously, as Barney leads her over to the booth. "It's kind of crazy you wanted to meet here."

"It's not crazy, it's awesome," Barney says. "The crazy part is that you didn't see me when you were here before." Instead of taking his original seat, he moves to the other side of the table, next to Robin. She scoots over to make room for him, leaving Tracy on the opposite bench by herself.

"Hi," Tracy says, smiling and frowning a tiny bit in confusion.

"Oh, this is my friend Robin," Barney says. "She's part of my gang! I have a gang. I'm the leader. Well, second in command. It's no big. She's here all the time too."

"Nice to meet you," Robin says, with a cool smile. Tracy seems to get the meaning, and shoots her a nervous look before refocusing on Barney.

"So, you're, uh, regulars here?" she asks.

"Yeah, Marshall and Lily live upstairs."

"And they are…?" Tracy prompts.

"Oh, they're _also_ my friends! I'm kind of their inspiration and life coach, you know…" Barney trails off with a smirk, clearly in a good mood. Robin, her own mood sour, picks through the crackers for one that isn't too crumbled. "The five of us are always together."

"Even on dates, apparently," Tracy says wryly, glancing over at Robin.

Barney clears his throat and avoids meeting Robin's eye when she tries to send _can you believe this?_ through telepathy.

"Sorry, am I in the way?" Robin asks Tracy.

"Oh, no, I didn't mean that!" Tracy says. "Um, my bad, I mean, it's not like this is a real date…"

"It's a real date," Barney corrects, a little put out. Both women look at him.

"I was thinking this was like… a preliminary pre-date kind of get together," Tracy says slowly.

Sensing a chink, Robin clears her throat. "I don't know," she says. "He said you were his girlfriend the other day."

"What?" Tracy's eyebrows go up and her eyes widen at Barney. "Uh - seriously? I mean, I'm flattered, I think…?"

"But you're not looking for a relationship right now?" Robin sucks in a breath through her teeth. "I get it. It's tough out there. Barney understands."

"No, I don't," Barney says, narrowing his eyes in confusion at Robin before turning back to Tracy. "And, no, you don't."

"I don't what? Feel flattered?"

"I mean, you wanna date me too," Barney says. "You're wearing makeup and perfume, and your dress has almost no wear on the seams, which means it's either new or one you don't wear a lot, probably because you wear it to impress people. Like me, on this, our first date." He holds up a finger before Tracy can say anything. "Ah-ah-ah. When I met you, you were en route to your boyfriend's and didn't have on any perfume, and were also buying a comb."

Tracy sits back in the booth and crosses her arms. "I don't know whether to be impressed or kinda creeped out," she says after a minute of deliberation. She's blushing a little, and fighting a smile, even as she frowns.

"Be impressed!" Barney says excitedly, and Tracy chuckles.

"Okay, creeper," Tracy says, "besides knowing a weird amount about smells and women's clothing, what do you do? Any job, besides drug store scouting?"

"No one knows," Robin interjects, mostly because she feels relegated to the corner and that kind of is bugging her.

"I work for GNB," Barney says, but he looks at Robin as he says it. She can't quite parse his expression: it's his calculating look, but she doesn't know why.

"Right, but your business card didn't have your actual job," Tracy says, pulling it out of her coat pocket. "It just says 'that guy's awesome.'"

"Heh, you kept it?" Barney smirks at her, and Tracy clears her throat.

"It has your phone number on it. So?"

"I told you, I work at GNB. So what about you?"

"I have a band," Tracy says, cocking her head to the side. Barney smiles, and Robin crosses her arms and slides back against the booth, watching them. Tracy has forgotten her nervousness, sitting forward, elbows on the table; Barney is leaning back, but he's relaxed, smiling. "We mostly do weddings," Tracy says. "I've always wanted to write my own songs but we're basically just a cover band."

"What do you play?" Barney asks. His legs are spread under the table, and his knee is almost touching Robin's leg. She nudges it with hers. He knocks his knee against hers, and she smiles.

"Bass guitar, and I _used_ to sing before _Darrell_ — this douchebag who stole my band — stole my band."

"Bass is kind of lame, but singing is hot," Barney says.

"Okay, that's where you're wrong. The bassist is the key to the whole band! The skeleton holding the music together! Name one big group without a great bassist — oh wait, you can't, there's no such thing."

"Please, the only bassist anyone knows is Paul McCartney, and that's like saying all suits are Armani just because it's the one brand you know."

"Brian Wilson."

"He's not a _bassist_."

"He plays the base! Look it up! Are you really going to challenge a semi-professional wedding band member on this?"

Robin nudges Barney again, to get his attention, but he's leaning across the table, arguing with Tracy, who is laughing in between her own arguments as she defends the honor of her chosen, lame, musical instrument. Barney is having fun too, Robin can see just looking at him: his eyes are bright and all pretenses at arrogance gone; he gets louder and more indignant the more Tracy challenges him, but it's the dramatic kind of indignant that he doesn't really mean. He's having fun. He likes talking to Tracy.

The conversation shifts from Tracy's band to music, Barney bragging about the groups he saw as a kid, with his groupie mother and roadie father. Tracy seems genuinely impressed that Barney's met ZZ Top. When Barney had first bragged to the gang about that, showing a picture around, Robin had dismissed it with the others as kind of stupid; they're a dumb group full of weird beards. Now she feels stung, hearing Tracy _ooh_ and _ahh_ at Barney's stupid story.

There's a sick tension boiling in her gut. She's angry. She doesn't really know why. She knocks her knee against Barney's, but he ignores it again: she swallows, then slips her foot out of her pump, runs her toes over his sock and ankle, her drink held to her mouth the entire time.

Barney pulls his foot away. "Of course _I_ know about music," he's telling Tracy. "Please. I'm an amazing musician."

"Oh, really?" Tracy chortles.

"Well, I gotta get going," Robin interrupts in a fake cheerful voice that comes out way too loud. Tracy gives her a look, half concerned and half confused, maybe incredulous, maybe _what the hell are you even doing here, Robin? No one wants you here, no one gives a crap that you're here_. Or something.

"'kay, see you later," Barney says. "I took piano lessons when I was a kid," he continues telling Tracy, his voice smug.

Robin hadn't known that about him.

Her face is hot for some reason, she's angry and humiliated for some reason, as she gathers up her things and heads towards the door. She's barely up the steps before she's texting Ted:

 _This chick's gotsta go._


	3. your heart can rest from this race

_Happy New Year! Once again I've been blown away by the response and follows this is getting — I like to assume I've tapped into a hidden market for Tracy/Barney, lmao._

* * *

"Okay, no, you have it all wrong," Tracy says, shaking her paper cup at Barney as they walk crosstown. "Totally, totally wrong. Columbia educated economist here, telling you you are r - o - n -g, wrong. Keynes argued that in times of recession, consumers didn't spend and so the government _had_ to step in to create jobs and financial stimulus —"

"Yeah, and they then sold off all those railroads and stuff to private companies to patch their own debts," Barney points out, scratching at his jawline and taking a loud slurp of his own milkshake. " _Keynesian economics_ ," he mutters. "You know what my bank did with _our_ bailout money?"

"God," Tracy groans, lifting her face skyward, "I'm actually trying to talk sense into a Wall Street douche."

"I don't work on _Wall Street_ ," Barney sniffs. "Those guys are tools."

"You're a banker! You live on the Upper East Side!" Tracy's voice starts out indignant but she starts to laugh by the end of the sentence. "I feel like my whole degree is cringing away from you."

"A lot of people can't handle my awesomeness at first," he tells her. "You get used to it, a little. It won't ever go away, but it'll be easier to look directly at me."

"Oh, I'm in awe of you," Tracy mutters around her straw. "And don't get me started on the _bail out_."

Barney rolls his eyes again. "Let's stop talking about work," he says, then perks up. "How much farther 'til Fake MacLaren's?"

They had been talking at the bar, at _real_ MacLaren's, for a while, for a while after Robin had taken off and then a while longer, long enough that Barney's secretary had called and he'd gone and cancelled all his afternoon meetings (whatever, he's never getting fired) so he could keep talking to Tracy. At one point she'd said _it's actually funny, I've been to another bar called MacLaren's on the East Side_ , and that had led them to on their current effort to go and find it: Barney has a sacred duty to his friends to investigate this (far inferior) new bar.

"I don't know, another couple of blocks?" Tracy chews on her straw. "It was definitely in this neighborhood."

"It can't be this neighborhood, I live like four blocks that way," Barney says, gesturing vaguely north. They're in the middle of 2nd Ave, in front of a Hungarian bakery and between two bars.

"Okay," Tracy says, squinting as she concentrates: Barney's seen her do that a few times, and it's kind of cute. "Okay, so it must be south."

"Real MacLaren's is on 76th, so fake MacLaren's is probably there too," Barney agrees, turning and guiding Tracy by the shoulders so she comes with.

"Has it occurred to you that maybe East Side MacLaren's is the real one and you're the one crossing town every day for an inferior copy?" Tracy asks.

"Wow, does it hurt, having no brain? Obviously West Side MacLaren's, referred to here by its proper name, "real" MacLaren's, is the superior alcoholic refreshment dispensary."

"Ooh, big words."

"I didn't need to get a useless degree at Columbia to learn 'em, either," Barney says, which predictably gets them through the next five blocks, Tracy first telling him what Calmfors-Driffill is and then arguing with him about it. It's starting to get dark, the rapid nightfall of late autumn, and cold with it. Barney's wearing a single-breasted wool suit (Dolce, an old standby but always a good choice), and even he's feeling it: Tracy has a short dress and a thin jacket, so she's probably pretty chilly too. He briefly debates (in the middle of trouncing her on the flaws of collective bargaining) giving her his jacket, but then he'd be cold, and that's not really his style anyway.

He could point out that his place is just a few blocks away. Could invite her over. Could offer to help her warm up. Tracy is into him, he can tell: that's easy, small potatoes, she's walking close to him, he's touched her arm and shoulder and she's never moved or pulled away. He could invite her over.

He could. Easy.

But he doesn't, instead throwing his cup into a bin they pass; Tracy follows his lead. "So where _did_ you go to school and learn to be an evil finance guy?" Tracy snorts. "Suit and tie, FiDi guy?" She can barely get through it with a straight face.

"Did you just ask me a personal question in the form of a rhyme?" Barney asks, smiling warmly down at her and her suppressing giggling. Warmly. His smile fades.

"It's a real question!" Tracy is saying, still laughing a little at her terrible rhymes. "Aren't we supposed to be getting to know one another here? For our future relationship?" She waves her hand. "You didn't get an Econ degree because your opinions suck and you didn't know that Keynes was a real person and not just the name of a thing, but you know about finance. So where did you go to school?"

He briefly considers saying MIT, or pretending to be a Columbia alum, or even telling the truth. "So we _are_ in a relationship?" he asks instead, and immediately sees Tracy's eyes widen, her steps falter; she moves a step sideways of him, an immediate, subconscious _away_.

His own guts clench up at the R-word, so he's not offended. It's less than it used to be, back before he _did_ do this sometimes, but it still happens: the wave of anxiety, panic, _she's gonna want things I can't do and I'm gonna end up unhappy and alone_ , muted but still there.

Sure, he can do relationships now. He might even be able to do marriage now. He knows the things to say and how it feels, what two toothbrushes look like in his bathroom, how the words _girlfriend_ and _fiancée_ feel when spoken aloud. He had been surprised how empty his apartment felt when Quinn was gone, how new again it was, to have to call someone to have them come over or meet him in a place. He knows how to be monogamous, and knows that he can do it, that he can look at others without having to pursue, can be happy with one person without getting bored. He knows what it's like to want to do better, feel better, be better. To prove himself to Nora and mean it, to be with Quinn and mean it. To want…

The problem is that in the end, he's still failed. Nora had wanted him to be a good boyfriend and he wasn't. Quinn had wanted him to trust her, and he hadn't. Robin _doesn't_ want him and nothing he's ever said or done has changed her mind.

He could ask Tracy back to his place.

He likes her.

He does, and that's the strange thing, the scary thing. He'd liked her on the bench the other day, and it wasn't the sort of thing Barney wastes his time questioning, but he likes her more now. Likes how she wrinkles her nose and waves her hands, likes talking with her, that she knows stuff about economics and music and even Star Wars. He likes her.

But it's different from how he felt about… others, he knows that too. She's not smoking hot like Quinn, isn't graceful and perfect like Nora. She isn't Robin. Barney can't honestly say he finds her all that hot: she's cute, but she's not his type (whatever that is.). She's too cute, too nice, too… friendly. Too fun to talk to. That isn't enough to keep him from sealing the deal, obviously. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it's a good thing, to meet someone and just… like them. It's not as though he likes a lot of people.

He _has_ always liked the strange, and doesn't this kind of count?

As he's thinking, so does Tracy, and they walk the rest of the block in thoughtful silence. "I mean, it is only a first date," Tracy says, after they've crossed the street to 78th. "Which is probably a little early for the talk."

He winces involuntarily and sucks in a breath. "Or we could just never?"

Tracy continues like she hadn't heard him: "Honestly, I don't have a lot of practice with this? I was with… with Max, and then I was a hermit person, and then I was with Lewis, and that's literally it. You… maybe are… my third boyfriend… ever."

Barney nods and puts his hands into his pockets. "You'd be my fourth girlfriend."

"Seriously? You're like ten years older than I am." Tracy sounds kind of impressed. Barney decides now isn't the time to go into the details as to how _that_ went down.

"I'm not ten years older than you are." He is pretty excited about the news that Tracy is only twenty-eight, but, c'mon.

Tracy laughs at that. "Nine years? Whatever, you look pretty good." He can tell by her tone and her sideways glance and how she's walking closer to him again that she meant it to be flirty, even though it's pretty weak flirting. Besides, he doesn't look _pretty_ good, he looks amazing.

"I could be your boyfriend," he says, trying to stop the involuntary nose wrinkle at the word. He tries for a second to think of something more to add, some form of the word vomit that women seem to like — you make me want to change, I can't stop thinking about you, _I love her, I love her and I'm not the kind of guy…_ Nothing comes to mind, nothing natural. "I like you," he says instead.

"Me too. I'm having a lot of fun," Tracy says, biting her lip. Somehow, the whole mood seems wrong here, kind of depressing instead of flirty and exciting. Barney tries to think back to where it went wrong; somehow, they seemed to be doing a better job when they were fighting over economics.

"So how much farther until the ripoff bar?" He asks instead, changing the subject and raising his voice.

"We're still on that?" Tracy asks, smiling after a moment of confusion.

 _That_ gets them through the next few blocks and the bodega they stop at to ask directions. The owner has never heard of MacLaren's, either one, and so they head out again, Tracy arguing they should just ask someone else.

"Why?" Barney asks, "If they have heard of it, they're just gonna tell us to go to the West Side." Tracy picks up her pace in an obvious show of ignoring him, but Barney is undaunted. "MacLaren's bar, 76th and Amsterdam, owned and founded by a guy I'm assuming was named MacLaren, founded in a year that, let's face it, became a little more awesome as soon as —"

"There it is!" Tracy had peeled ahead just far enough to round a corner ahead of Barney, and she whirls around, pointing, her expression triumphant. "MacLaren's, east side. Thank god, I was starting to freeze out here."

At a single glance, it's clear to Barney that this MacLaren's is, indeed, inferior. "Well," he says resignedly as they cross the street, "since we're here, wanna get something to eat?"

Tracy checks her phone. "It's already five thirty?" she says with surprise and dismay. Barney had kind of guessed that by the fact that it was dark out, but she seems genuinely surprised. He knows just from that he has a real shot with her. She bites her lip.

"I'll pay," he says, "even though I'm sure the food sucks."

Tracy wavers, he can see it, but doesn't argue. "You're just not gonna let this die, are you?"

"Nope," he says, holding the door to the bar open for her. "I'm already planning on bringing the gang here so they can also see how much it sucks. Barkeep!" he calls, to the non-Carl guy behind the bar. "A scotch on the rocks and," he's about to order for Tracy, but realizes he has no idea what she drinks. She didn't have anything with lunch. "Do you drink scotch?" he asks hopefully.

"Umm, sometimes," Tracy says. "I'll just have a coke," she tells the bartender.

"I'm not trying to get you drunk," Barney says, as a general disclaimer; he's done it before, but Tracy is obviously different.

"No, it wasn't… but okay, coke with vodka?" Tracy says, addressing the bartender again. Barney winces. In his opinion, that's barely even a _drink_.

"Opening a tab?" the bartender asks.

"We're gonna eat here too," Barney says. They find an empty table, Barney eyeing the booths darkly.

"I haven't been here in forever," Tracy says, looking around as she scoots her chair in.

"I can see why," Barney says. There's a small early crowd, mostly clustered at the bar or around a TV in the back. The girls aren't even hot.

"Come on, it's not that bad," Tracy says. A waitress comes over with their drinks and two menus. "See? Fast service!"

Barney takes a sip of his scotch: to his mild disappointment, it's perfectly good. Tracy laughs when she sees his expression. "I'm guessing you're a big scotch drinker," she says.

"It is the greatest and most refined of drinks," he says. "As you should know, being Scottish."

Tracy laughs again. He likes her laugh, and how free she is with it. "I'm not! My great-great grandfather married into a bunch of Italians. All that's left is the name. So what are you, English?"

"Uh, try _American_. And definitely _not_ one quarter Canadian. That would be lame."

After that, they talk about their families: Tracy has a big family, and Barney has his mom and James, and eventually remembers his half-siblings; they order burgers (not the best in New York, and also inferior to real MacLaren's), talking about their siblings, growing up just outside of the city — Staten Island and _Jersey_ , which is almost a deal breaker — and whatever else comes to mind. Tracy is really easy to talk to. She seems really interested in what he says, even the boring, lame stuff, and even if he makes jokes she doesn't seem to get, it's kind of nice. It is nice. It's… normal.

It feels like a conversation normal people have. Barney regulates himself, of course, watches Tracy carefully for signs she's turned off or on — the best he can do to gauge interest — and tries to say normal things, think normal things. It's not that hard: weird to talk about family and work, to remind himself to be honest when he starts to tell a lie. He doesn't know why he's being so honest, except it feels like the right thing to do, and he trusts his instincts on this kind of thing. Tracy seems like an nice person. A person he could be friends with.

A person he could be in a relationship with.

He doesn't want to screw that up.

They're on their third round — Tracy switched to soda and Barney starting to feel a little buzzed — when Barney's phone rings. Tracy waves at him to answer it when he raises his eyebrows, so he does. It's Ted. "Hey, we're all at the bar, are you coming tonight?" he says without a hello.

"Are Marshall and Lily there?" Barney asks, first thing.

"Yeah! Yeah, Mickey's sitting. So are you coming?"

Of course he immediately wants to, suddenly aware again he's sitting in a shitty bar and his friends are all waiting for him — but Barney looks across the table at Tracy, who smiles politely. "Totally! I'll bring Tracy!" he says enthusiastically, meaning it.

Tracy's eyebrows go up. Over the phone, Ted sounds surprised. "Your new girlfriend? Wasn't your date this afternoon?"

"Yeah, we're still on it. She's cool," Barney says, and then starts to question if any of this is weird or if it's weird he wants her to meet his friends. He doesn't know, he just has a feeling they'd all get along.

"You must really be into her," Ted says, sounding impressed. He hears Ted say to the others at the booth: "They're still on their date." Barney can kind of hear Lily's enthusiastic squeal, which makes him wince. "Oh — come on, Robin," Ted continues. Across the table, Tracy looks quizzically at Barney, listening on the phone. Ted sighs loudly in Barney's ear. "Robin says she can't come because there's no room at the booth, because Robin's new boyfriend, Bill Pepper, is already coming in a minute," Ted says flatly. Barney's stomach does something weird. "So are you dropping by?" Ted asks in his normal voice.

"Uhh…" Barney looks across the table at Tracy. He's not sure what his next move is. He wants to hang out with his friends, _and_ hang out with Tracy. And he keeps thinking of this asshole burly hockey player Robin's picked up, too. "My friends want to know if you wanna hang out with them," he says, feeling somehow defiant.

Tracy doesn't look all that enthused. "I don't know…" she says uncertainly. Barney shifts the phone away from his mouth.

"They're awesome. You already like Robin, right?"

"It's not… that," Tracy says with a puzzled frown, "it's just, it's getting kind of late…" she chuckles. "This date's gonna end eventually, right?"

Barney hangs up on Ted. "You're not having fun?" His stomach sinks for a different reason than a minute ago, and his throat feels kind of tight for some reason. He swallows. Was it because he thinks Keynes was a tool?

"No!" Tracy says. "No, I'm actually," she frowns, which isn't great, "having a lot of fun."

"You're really selling it," he can't help saying.

"It's just, dude, it's been seven hours," Tracy laughs. "And meeting your friends already? What's next? A quick flight to Vegas in the morning?"

"If that's what you're into, baby," Barney says automatically, leering a little, except then he realizes what he just said and what she implied and clears his throat. He balls up his napkin and smooths his tie. "Yeah, okay. Wanna split a cab?"

"Yeah," Tracy says with relief. "Where are you headed?"

"As far away from this fake MacLaren's as possible," Barney says, reaching for the check. "by which I mean the real one."

They're mostly quiet in the cab on the way to the West Side, Ted's phone call somehow having knocked something askew. Things were going fine until they remembered they were on a date… and the implications of that kind of bugs Barney a little bit.

When they reach Tracy's apartment, she tries to go in her purse to pay for her fare and Barney waves it off. "I make three times more money than you," he says.

"God, that's hot," Tracy deadpans, sliding out of the cab. She leans in the open door. "Hey, but, I really did have a lot of fun today," she says, smiling.

Barney feels himself smile. "Yeah, me too," he says, and means it.

"Well… I'll call you, I guess!" Tracy says, clearing her throat. "Night!"

She shuts the cab door. This is a date, Barney remembers. On impulse, before the driver can pull them away, Barney undoes his seatbelt and opens his. "Wait!" He yells, climbing out of the cab. Tracy, only a few steps away, turns as he approaches.

This is a date. He hurries up to her, and before she can say anything or protest — her brown eyes wide with surprise — he leans down and presses a quick kiss to her mouth. He backs away immediately (he could go upstairs. He could talk her into it. He could. He doesn't), grins at her wide eyed expression. "I'll call you," he says, taking a big backwards step, watching her gape and lift her hand to her mouth. "See you around, McConnell."


	4. i've seen all your qualifications

_hey guys! i didn't forget about this trainwreck, i promise!_

* * *

Ted stares at his phone for a moment. "He hung up on me," he says, bemused, putting the phone on the tabletop. He shrugs. "I guess the date's going well?"

"So is Barney coming or not?" Robin asks. Even though it's only the four of them, she's grabbed the entire right side of the booth for herself, leaving Ted to the chair and Marshall and Lily nursing their drinks in the other bench with grim 'we have only half an hour until we have to check on Marvin' determination.

"No idea," Ted admits.

"Okay, _what_ is going on?" Lily pleads, leaning towards Robin across the table, who is abruptly very engrossed in her onion rings.

"Don't know, don't care," she says.

"But you met her!" Lily insists.

"For like, two seconds, on my way out the door. Whatever."

Ted keeps his gaze focused straight at Robin — well, at the side of her head — but she resists all his telepathy and attempts to use to the force to make eye contact.

"And 'Bill Pepper?'" he asks pointedly.

"Cancelled. Oh, no," Robin says, trying to fake some sadness over her clearly fake boyfriend. Ted rolls his eyes and takes a drink from his glass, trying to ignore the churning feeling in his stomach — it doesn't take much detective work to see what Robin is doing here, after showing up at his office this afternoon, but he hasn't worked out how he feels about it yet. From her scowl, Ted guesses Lily has a hunch, too.

"Lily," Marshall says gently. "Who cares about Robin's compulsive lying and Barney's compulsive… Barney? Let's just enjoy the fifteen remaining minutes of our night on the town."

"Fine," Lily grumbles, leaning back against the booth.

They all sit in gloomy silence for a few seconds, until Ted thinks of a good subject change: "So anyway, this girl I met on the A train…"

"Dammit!" Lily interrupts, shooting forward again, reaching with both hands desperately towards Robin. "I gotsta know!"

"Why?" Robin demands. "Marshall's right! Let's just enjoy our fun night out and not talk about some hobag Barney is tricking into sleeping with him! Didn't we _just_ get rid of Quinn?"

"I liked Quinn," Lily says, frowning. "I thought you did, too."

"She…" Robin looks up at the ceiling; wincing with the effort of admitting it, "was… not… the worst person… in the universe. But who cares? She's gone now!"

Ted would rather be talking about A Train Ashley, but he can't resist. Tries for a minute, but he has to. "Lily does have a point," he says. "I don't think I've ever seen Barney willingly spend more than an hour with any woman who wasn't you two, his mom, or Quinn. Or Nora." He ticks them all off on his hand. "Or that girl from a few years ago he was trying to bang to win our bet." He lifts one finger on his other hand.

Lily nods eagerly. "Exactly! Barney is a creepy misogynist!" Ted wonders if she should really put it so… bluntly, and glances at Robin to see how she reacts. She's still pointedly looking at her food. Lily continues: "but on the phone just now he said he was still out on his date!"

"Seriously, guys, do we have to go into this?" Marshall sighs.

Lily looks over at him in surprise. "Of course we have to!"

"Not really," Robin mutters. If it comes to a vote, Ted isn't sure where he'd land. Barney's romantic life usually interests him about as much as… as… well, it doesn't. And Robin's bitchy jealousy is making him all sorts of uncomfortable. On the other hand, it _is_ weird. And it's hard to resist a good mystery.

"Why?" Lily continues, still addressing Marshall, her tone less over-eager. "What's wrong?"

"It's just… doesn't it get depressing, after a while?" Marshall shrugs. "Barney will bang this perfectly nice girl, break up with her, and two days later he'll bang…" Marshall waves at a random woman at the bar, "that one. And we'll all sigh and make fun of him, but he'll just do it again."

"To be fair, that _is_ why we're talking about the weird fact that he's on a six hour date," Ted says.

"It's not that weird." Ted's used to Lily defending Barney — they all know she has a soft spot for him — but it's Robin who speaks. She glares down at her onion rings, ignoring everyone's stares; then suddenly Robin breaks. "I mean, come on! It's not, okay?" She rolls her eyes. "I didn't just date Ted, I dated Barney too."

"I mean, are those two situations really the same?" Ted can't help but ask. "We were together for a year, we almost moved in together…"

" — And in the past year or so," Robin says, barreling over Ted's input, "he's gone from Nora to me…any. Many! Many other girls, including Quinn, who he was engaged to, which we all agree was terrible." She's flustered, clears her throat. "So, like, Barney can date people if he _feels_ like it. He knows how to."

"I agree with Robin," Lily says, frowning at Robin. "If Barney is moving on to his third serious relationship in a year, it's important gang information."

"Exactly!" Robin says. "That's why we need to make sure this hobag isn't tricking him and taking advantage of his feelings and stuff." She pauses a beat. "The poor guy barely _has_ a heart, so we gotta protect it. Make sure he doesn't get hurt. By this ho."

"And maybe they'll get married! And she'll be a new member of the gang!" Lily says, sitting upright in excitement.

"Or we break them up!" Robin says, just as enthusiastically.

Marshall sighs. "It _would_ be nice to see more love in this world," he says reluctantly. "Still with us, Ted?"

"Huh?" Ted's only been listening with half an ear for the last few minutes, thinking about the past. "Uh. If Barney is happy, that's fine." He shrugs. He feels weirdly let-down, still doesn't really want to think about why, besides that it's Robin.

Barney shows up at the bar a few minutes later, just as Marshall and Lily are leaving, running into them at the stairs. Lily immediately seizes him by the forearms and starts asking questions Ted can hear over the din of evening crowd: "Where is she? Do you have pictures?"

Marshall pries her off with a final yell of, "We'll talk about this later, Stinson!" and Barney adjusts his suit and walks backwards to the booth after placing a quick order. He slides into the bench Marshall and Lily just left. Robin frowns. Ted notices.

"Do pregnancy hormones last a long time after popping the kid out?" Barney asks, adjusting his sleeves. "'cause the lady is craa-zy."

"I think she's interested in this whole girlfriend thing you have going," Ted says.

"Why?" Barney asks.

"Yeah, why?" Robin says, her voice heavy with annoyance. They both look at her, and she rolls her eyes. "Do we even talk about anything else anymore?"

"Not recently," Ted admits. At Barney's look, he shrugs. "Anyway, weren't you bringing her?"

"Nah, she had to go. Dinner with her grandma. We did talk about me meeting Nona, but it might be a little too soon," Barney says, so blithe that Ted has no idea if he's lying or not. "But it's cool. Robin, you hanging around?"

"I guess, why?" she asks warily. Ted tries not to roll his eyes, feeling kind of annoyed at her again. For all her complaining, you'd think she'd be happy.

"Beeeecause of your new boyfriend?" Barney prompts, eyes narrowed.

"Oh. He, uh, he cancelled. He has open heart surgery — I mean, he's doing one, because he's a doctor," Robin says, biting her lip and lying so obviously that Ted is shocked that Barney doesn't immediately laugh in her face.

"Really? That sucks," Barney says cheerfully. He leans back against the bench as a waitress brings over his scotch. "Ted, Robin, you two have the privilege of proving, right now, which of you loves me more. I know, I know," he says patronizingly, "neither of you can bear to lose this fight. But only one of you can be my wingman this evening —"

"Yeeaaah, I'm not doing that," Robin interrupts.

"What?" Barney looks thrown.

"Dude!" Ted says, stuck playing the role of common sense. "What happened to the new girlfriend?"

"Exactly!" Barney says, taking a sip of his drink, looking puzzled. "I'm not going to be getting laid for a little while, so one last hit to keep me going — it's like loading up the tank before a long trip. Except I'm going to be the one _un_ loading —"

"Have fun with him," Robin says, standing up abruptly and patting Ted on the shoulder on her way out of the booth.

"I thought you were sticking around?" Ted asks.

"Yeah!" Barney says. "Come on, Robin! You _love_ helping me get laid!" Ted can't help but sigh. Robin looks stormy. Barney's eyebrow slowly lifts. " _Or_ ," he says.

"Knock it off, Barney." Ted surprises even himself when he says it; Barney and Robin both look taken aback. He drains his beer. "I mean, dude, seriously?"

"What's the big deal? We went on one date, it's not serious yet, and Tracy," Barney says, his voice dropping from indignant to something similar to thoughtful, "is the kind of girl you gotta put some effort into." He then ruins it: "Not that I totally couldn't have gotten on that tonight."

"Right, which is why you showed up here alone," Robin says. She's still standing by Ted's shoulder, her hand on the back of his chair.

"Exactly!" Barney says peevishly. "Could I have gotten in her pants tonight? Of course. Look at me. But maybe I like this girl. Maybe it's not _always_ about just getting laid the first time I'm at a girl's place. Maybe I want to wait until the moment is right."

"Huh," Ted says. "Maybe Lily was right about you."

"Doubt it, bro," Barney says, spinning a finger around his ear. "The girl's cuckoo."

"What are you playing here?" Robin demands: she sits back down in the seat she'd just vacated. "I mean," she adds, then clears her throat and leans over the table. "I'm worried about you. We all are. You've been acting weird lately. Are you sure this isn't a rebound?"

"What are you talking about?" Barney asks suspiciously. Ted looks back and forth between the two of them, both with oddly similar wary expressions.

"From Quinn," Robin says. She leans back again.

There's some subtext flying around here; Ted can sense it in the way Robin leans forward and back, the way Barney's expression is unusually subdued. And then Barney shrugs. "Nope, I just think Tracy is cool. Ted, blonde at the bar." Ted doesn't exactly mean to look, but he does.

"One last bang for the road! Pretend to choke in five!" With that, Barney is on his feet headed towards the blonde. Ted glances at his watch, and then at Robin.

"Hey," he says. She's looking stormy again. "Are you doing okay?" Conscious he's repeating her, he adds, "you've been acting weird."

He's completely expecting her to deny it. "I know," Robin says in a quiet voice. Ted feels his eyebrows go up. "I don't know, things have just been kind of weird lately, and I…" Robin trails off, scratching at the tabletop with her nail. "If Barney is settling down, where does that leave me?" She doesn't pause long enough for Ted to react, to the question or to the pang he feels. "Nick was hot, but I wasn't exactly in love with the guy."

"I know what you mean," Ted admits. "Not about Nick being hot, since honestly he was only a six —" Robin coughs, "— but, yeah. If even _he_ can find someone…" Ted looks over at Barney, talking closely to the blonde woman at the bar, and then at his watch. Two minutes to go.

He looks back at Robin, who is still watching Barney's progress at the bar. "I guess we just have to keep looking," Ted says, because it's the kind of thing he says, used to really believe. "Keep trying to figure out what we're looking for. Who we're looking for."

Her gaze shifts from the bar to Ted. "Do you want to go out sometime?"


End file.
